1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related to wine stands or buckets, and more specifically to devices used to chill wine bottles and similar beverage containers and keep them cool while simultaneously providing ambience and entertainment.
2. Description of Related Art
It is common for a person enjoying a bottle of wine or sparkling wine to desire to have the wine kept cool and maintained at a cool temperature suitable for drinking. Whether in a restaurant or at home, a wine drinker will typically have pre-chilled the wine and then, while enjoying the wine, keep the bottle in a bucket filled with ice water. As another alternative, the wine drinker may pour some wine and return the wine bottle to a refrigerator until another serving of wine is desired. Other beverages such as vodka or gin are also sometimes desired to be consumed at ice cold temperatures at a bar or party. However, other than leaving the bottle in a bucket of ice, it is difficult to keep the beverage remaining in the bottle ice cold.
These methods are somewhat effective, however they suffer from several drawbacks. First, if the wine or other beverage bottle is in a bucket of ice water, the ice and/or the bucket itself partially or completely obscure the label of the wine bottle or block the label from view. Should the wine be returned to the refrigerator, it is, of course, completely hidden from view. Should one of the wine drinkers wish to see the bottle, e.g., to see what she is drinking or to learn more about the wine, she would have to remove it from the ice bucket or refrigerator. If from the former, the ice water will drip from the wine bottle and make a fair amount of mess. If from the latter, the interested party must get up and go to the refrigerator, an act that may be considered rude at someone else's home and may be impossible at a restaurant. Similarly, a party host or bar-goer may wish to show off or display a particularly expensive brand of wine, vodka, or the like. One cannot display a bottle adequately inside an ice bucket. There are artistic stands that display one or more bottles of wine, however these do so in open air and have no cooling or chilling function whatsoever. Placing a bottle that is in the process of being consumed on such a conventional stand will cause it to warm to room temperature rapidly.